


Semi-Charmed

by TenSpencerRiedPlease



Category: Captain America (Movies), Iron Man (Movies), The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Werewolves Are Known, Developing Relationship, Human-Werewolf Interactions, I Don't Even Know, I Wrote This Instead of Sleeping, M/M, Pack Dynamics, Pre-Relationship, Sort Of, Werewolves, Werewolves Turn Into Actual Wolves, at least sometimes, i know these are all teen wolf tags but they fit ok
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-25
Updated: 2017-08-25
Packaged: 2018-12-19 17:09:33
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,039
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11902302
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TenSpencerRiedPlease/pseuds/TenSpencerRiedPlease
Summary: Tony didn’t particularly care for running through the woods on account of the werewolves that tended to roam in there but at this point he was risking it by spending time with humans so here he was, running for his life through a fucking forest feeling like Red Riding Hood.





	Semi-Charmed

**Author's Note:**

> Sometimes my ability to write so much in a short period of time astounds even me.
> 
> This was a plot bunny I had so I uh... wrote it out. Hope y'all like it!

Tony didn’t particularly care for running through the woods on account of the werewolves that tended to roam in there but at this point he was risking it by spending time with humans so here he was, running for his life through a fucking forest feeling like Red Riding Hood. Except wolves hadn’t eaten his grandma, humans had killed a good portion of his family and were after him and his friends now apparently. If he got out of this alive he was killing Obadiah Stane, mark his words. For now though he was concerned with not dying from the bullets being fired in his direction and also not getting killed by werewolves.

He hadn’t spotted any yet but he’s been running through these woods for the better part of the day, they were bound to be in here somewhere. “Tony,” Obadiah calls, “you might as well give up now. If we don’t kill you those beasts will.”

He’s tempted to call out that he’d take his chances with the beasts but he doesn’t do that, he just creeps forward slowly. When he hears a gun go off he automatically ducks but he’s surprised to hear a yelp from about fifteen feet in front of him. “That’s it, just fucking eat them,” he hears a voice say and just like that a bunch of people, well likely werewolves, jump out of seemingly nowhere. Tony decides he’s not going to stick around to see this mess so he starts to sneak off, grabbing a large stick off the ground for potential protection purposes. He makes it about twelve feet before one of Obadiah’s guys comes at him and he swings his stick, managing to hit the guy in the gut. Tony doesn’t waste time in walking away even if he knew that guy wasn’t staying down.

He makes it another twelve feet from _there_ when the guy comes back, knocking Tony to the ground. He struggles for a moment before the goon is lifted off of him and tossed into a tree. Tony scrambles for his fallen stick, grabs it, and stands to face his new attacker. Clearly the guy is a werewolf or Tony guesses he is from the smirk on his face. “Look man, I just saved your ass so-” Tony swings, smoking the guy in the head but the _stick_ breaks.

“That was so unnecessary!” the other guy yells, touching his already healed temple. “The hell, man?” he asks.

“I am _so_ not getting eaten by a werewolf today!” Tony yells back, grabbing the nearest stick he could find and brandishing it.

The other guy had a good six inches and fifty pounds on him _easy_ not to mention all those wolf-y benefits but Tony wasn’t going to go down easy. The guy looks at him for a moment before he wrinkles his nose, “I’m not going to eat you, I’m not an animal you asshole. Put down the stick,” he says.

“You’re really going to insult me and then tell me to put down the stick?” he asks, incredulous.

“I saved your human behind and then you hit me in the head with a stick so I think the insult was warranted. So put down the stick and then you can tell me why the hell you and your human buddies were this far into the woods,” he says, holding up his hands in surrender. Tony isn’t stupid enough to do as he says.

“Did they look like my buddies to you?” Tony asks, squinting.

“Nah, but by virtue of being the same species you get to be buddies,” the other guy says.

Tony rolls his eyes, “you know what, screw this,” he says and he goes to step forward to at least knock this guy out, or make an attempt to, but he doesn’t get anywhere near the guy before an honest-to-god _wolf_ jumps between them. The wolf is limping and its ears are back a little and when Tony grips his stick tighter it flinches like an abused animal might. He considers the wolf, much larger than the average wolf at that, for a few moments but he can’t bring himself to hit it. Sure technically the wolf was also a person technically but right now this person was an animal and Tony didn’t really want to hurt what looked like a massive husky.

So he sighs, “I’ll let you go,” he tells the wolf as he walks backward until he hits the edge of the small clearing he’s in and then he turns around to walk off. He hears _maybe_ three foot falls before he’s suddenly eating dirt with a wolf on top of him. “Damnit,” he mumbles as the wolf backs off him a little and grabs his ankle in its mouth. “Hey, hey, you put me down!” Tony yells at the wolf. It doesn’t listen, it just drags him back to the guy he was battling it out with in the first place and leaves him in front of him, walking away without looking the slightest bit hurt like Tony thought it was.

He goes to pick himself up but the guy the wolf dropped him in front of shakes his head and picks him up, tossing him over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes. Tony was _not_ impressed. “You put me down you overgrown hairball!” Tony yells.

“The name is Sam, not ‘overgrown hairball’ thank you. And I doubt we’re keeping you long. Bucky doesn’t mingle with humans,” he says in what is decidedly a foreboding tone. Great, so Tony ran Obadiah’s goons into some werewolves only for him to get captured by the freaking werewolves. This was just his luck.

*

Tony is all but tossed on the ground in a heap, payback for hitting him in the head Sam tells him, and he walks off. He’s alone for maybe four seconds before he finds a redhead in front of him looking amused for some reason. He sits there for another several minutes before a tall guy with long brown hair pulled into a bun walks in, looking down at Tony with a smirk. He would have been cute if he hadn’t just kidnapped Tony.

“What were you doing in the forest?” he asks in a low, even tone.

“The fuck did it look like? Running from the people you ate,” he snaps.

The dark haired guy raises an eyebrow, “Sam wasn’t kidding when he said you had a temper and a mouth. Fine then, why were you running and what had you this deep into the woods, hmm?” he asks, head tilted to the side.

“I was running for my life so I wasn’t really paying attention to how deep in the woods I was. Turns out my business partner is a traitorous bastard,” he mumbles more to himself than the guy asking questions.

“And your… business partner, he sent a whole team of pretty impressively armed people to kill you? You’re not even two hundred pounds soaking wet and you’re barely taller than what, five foot five?” he asks.

“Five foot six and a _half_ , thanks,” Tony mumbles. “And Obi isn’t a moron, he knows I’m resourceful, smart. He also knows I have a high self-preservation instinct when I feel like it. So he made sure his guys outstripped me in every possible way. Maybe he should have armed them to deal with werewolves instead,” Tony says. The wolf snarls at him, upper lip lifting to reveal his teeth in a surprisingly animal gesture given that he’s human at the moment. Or he looks human, more accurately. “Just saying, you guys took them all out, I didn’t.”

“Maybe they should have minded their guns,” the guy snarls back.

“Sure they should have but they’re a bunch of jackasses who were trying to kill me because I didn’t like Obadiah’s business plan of sell weapons to everyone. Or anyone really, so he tried to have me killed.” Ignorant bastard, Tony was only doing what was right but _no_ , that wasn’t good enough for Obadiah. And as it turned out he had had Howard and his mom killed too the fucking bastard.

“Think they’ll come back here? Or you for that matter?” he asks in a curt tone.

“Probably not,” Tony says, rolling his eyes.

“Good. Leave and don’t come back,” he tells Tony ad he turns to leave but a small blonde has entered the room and he looked annoyed.

“Why are there like fifteen dead humans a half a mile out from here?” he asks.

The brunette nods at Tony, “ask him,” he says. The blonde gives Tony an expectant look so he sighs.

“My business partner was trying to kill me and aimed a gun at the wrong person,” he says.

“A bullet grazed Sam’s arm,” the brunette corrects.

The blonde rolls his eyes, “so you _killed_ them all? Great, that’s going to be a fucking mess, Bucky. And what’s going on with the human? You told him to go but how the hell is he going to do that?” the blonde asks, clearly agitated.

The brunette, Bucky Tony guesses, sighs. “The same way he came, Steve, on foot,” he tells him.

“I’ll take care of the humans actually, I can write them all off easily.” If he knew Obadiah, and he did even if he didn’t know the man as well as he thought he did, than none of those people were traceable anyways. They were all likely without families, no friends to speak of, and transient enough that their neighbors wouldn’t notice them missing. He wouldn’t have to do much work at all in covering all of this up. Served them all right for trying to kill Tony. He’d tell everyone else Obadiah had a heart attack while fucking some poor hooker who was too much for him to handle. Screw him too.

“Thank you,” the blonde says to Tony and then he turns to Bucky. “We are _not_ making the human walk home, we have cars and we aren’t savages. Give him a ride,” the blonde says.

Bucky scowls, “no. He can walk home,” he snaps.

“No, you can give him a ride and then you’ll be done with him. Right?” the blonde asks Tony, eyebrow raised.

“Sure unless someone else tries to kill me and I have the misfortune of being in this general area again,” he says in a snarky tone.

“There. Get the human, get a car, and drop him off at home,” the blonde tells Bucky and with that he leaves.

Bucky lets out a long sigh, “get up and lets go,” he mumbles.

*

“So,” Tony, that’s what the human’s name was, says. “What’s with the blonde? I hear that werewolves have this weird pecking system and-”

“Shut up and stop talking about what you don’t know,” Bucky snaps at he didn’t even want to give the damn human a ride home but Steve _insisted_.

“Fine, then explain what I don’t know and then I’ll know,” Tony says in that incredibly irritating way of his. If he kept his fucking mouth shut he might have been attractive and Bucky would have appreciated that but no, the human had to open his mouth and ruin it.

“First off our pecking order is not ‘weird’, it’s not human. I know humans like to consider everything that isn’t associated with them weird but that’s because you’re an arrogant species, not because you’re right. Wolf packs, unlike actual wolves FYI, have general pack members, an alpha, and an omega. Contrary to popular belief alphas _don’t_ run packs, at least not in the human sense, alphas come in _all_ genders, not just male, and self proclaimed human alpha males are whiney asshats who wants a free pass to be a douchebag. Steve would be the omega of the pack,” he says in an irritated tone. He could only hope that Tony spread the knowledge around so humans would stop spreading misinformation that led to misunderstandings and mistreatment that got them killed on a regular basis. And humans were arrogant enough to assume _wolves_ were the dangerous ones. They were only dangerous when provoked; humans would attack at the slightest misunderstanding or grievance. Tony’s situation proved that.

Tony nods, taking this all in. “Okay, makes sense. How do you know who is what? I heard-”

“I don’t give a shit what you heard, it’s probably bullshit. Alphas earn their place as leader- not _ruler_ like humans assume, we have no interest in acting like we own our packs- and we can be kicked out of that position if we misuse it. Its also a myth that the strongest is the alpha, that’s some stupid shit human men made up to make themselves feel better about being assholes to people and for some reason a lot of the population buys into it. Omegas are born that way and they’re rare, not all packs have them. Mostly they’re just special because they’re rare. They’re like blessings,” he says. Steve was a whole damn series of blessings wrapped into a blessing in the form of an omega. Wolves usually didn’t have many health issues thanks to their fast healing but Steve had a bunch of problems, problems that would have killed someone less strong than he is. But he persisted and now his health was mostly under control.

“Blessings from who? The wolf god?” Tony asks, snickering at his own joke. Bucky snarls at him and Tony rolls his eyes, “what? It’s not my fault the idea of god is absurd. I mean seriously, a magical sky fairy like what, pointed a wand at us and said some shit and now we’re here? Come on,” he says, rolling his eyes.

“Is it really more ridiculous than half the other things humans believe? You think being born on one rock instead of another makes you inherently superior for some reason, that has way less reason than god. At least god as a purpose,” Bucky mumbles.

“So does patriotism and nationalism,” Tony points out. “But I happen to find that ridiculous too. So a blessing to who, or what?” he asks.

Bucky resists the urge to dump the human out of the car right now and drive off. “Not any one god, like humans werewolves follow many religions, some specific to us, some not. So whom the blessing of an omega is from depends on the person and the pack. And for the record atheism is basically a religion with the way you all act,” Bucky tells him.

“Alright then. So what makes am omega so special besides you know, rarity,” Tony says.

“What makes gold and diamonds so special to humans aside from rarity?” Bucky asks and Tony frowns at that.

“Fine, good point. Omegas are given arbitrary value on the basis of being a rare thing like human goods are. So alphas, you said they don’t lead like humans do. Explain,” Tony says, leaning forward in interest.

“Humans are barbaric, they think leadership and ownership are basically the same. People who amass too much in your culture are considered good, they’re strong and they’re leaders and innovators for taking far more than they need. The rest are considered lazy and useless, especially if they have no economic value. Wolves aren’t like that, we see value differently. Value is measured in how much you care about your pack members, how loyal you are. If you start hoarding things all to yourself you’re shunned because you’ve shown that you’re selfish and cruel. Leaders make sure that things stay level, that everyone’s needs are met and we don’t typically need intimidation tactics to make it happen.” Intimidation was usually reserved for other alphas or the occasional pack member that stepped out of line. Or, on even more rare occasions, packless wolves that stuck their noses where they didn’t belong.

Tony snorts, “so what, werewolves are a perfect utopian society? Give me a break,” he says, rolling his eyes.

“Of course we aren’t utopian, jackass. We fight and argue and squabble as much as humans do, and sometimes we’re violent about it too. But we aren’t as selfish and nasty as humans are; it’s extremely taboo for us to take what we don’t need, especially if the pack isn’t going to benefit from it. Something like that will get you kicked out of a pack, we have no use for members looking to leech off others to amass more for themselves,” he says. Exploitation was not something werewolves tolerated. It went against their nature.

“Fine then, that happens once a wolf is booted from the pack?” Tony asks.

Bucky’s lip curls up just a little in a humorless smile, “that’s where wolves get nasty. If you have no pack you’re a pariah, no one will take you in. They assume you’re that you’re greedy and selfish and they don’t ever give you a chance to state your case. Packless wolves get sick and die, we’re social animals and without that we get depression and anxiety bad enough that we get physically sick too. Then we die alone. So no, wolves are hardly running in a utopian world, we just have a thing for equilibrium that can sometimes swing too far from where we want it to be.” He’d know, he was packless for a long time and almost died too. Steve found him and basically brought him back from the brink.

“But if you get kicked out of packs for being a greedy douche shy bother to let people state their case?” Tony asks.

“Because wolves aren’t running utopian packs, dipshit. Wolves are _supposed_ to get kicked out only for greediness and that sort of thing. That doesn’t mean that’s the reality. And some wolves have never had packs, not the formal kind anyways, and they shouldn’t get sent off to die because life handed them a shitty situation,” he says. It wasn’t _his_ fault he was born in some human experimentation lab. He couldn’t help that his pack, if you could even call it that, was about ten kids in a room that slowly got killed off until it was only him left. Those weren’t circumstances he created by he got punished harshly for them anyways.

Tony raises an eyebrow, sensing that that statement was more personal than not. “So how’d you end up with your pack?” he asks.

“None of your god damn business,” Bucky snaps.

That earns him a laugh, “I knew this forthcoming attitude had to stop somewhere. Why even give me this much?” he asks.

“Because humans make things up about us and those lies get us killed. Humans act like we’re savages. You’d know, Sam saved your ass and you tried to bash his head in anyways based only on his being a werewolf. If he weren’t you would have walked away or offered to have him go with you or some other touching human thing. I figure if I give you the right information you might tell some of your human friends that _they’re_ the savage animals, not us. Werewolves have never hunted humans but there are entire continents that have made it their business to wipe us out.” Humans took pride in hunting wolves and other supernatural creatures; they hung their heads on their walls. They acted like wolves and other creatures were the monsters but they were out there all but committing genocide in the name of humans being the only natural humanoid species, they claimed everyone _else_ was wrong for existing. It was disgusting.

Tony thinks on this for a long moment, “to be fair you did order your pack to eat Obi’s guys. How were you supposed to know the difference between them and me?” he asks.

“We’d been tracking you for three miles with all that racket you were making for one. And for two they were calling out to a ‘Tony’ and you were the only human responding to that. And three, we can smell things you know. They didn’t smell afraid but you did. We knew who the target was the whole time and you’re not stupid so don’t act it. You attacked Sam because he was a werewolf, not because you were afraid of him. If he wanted you dead you would be and you knew it.” For three miles he watched Tony evade this Obadiah man’s goons and he displayed clear intelligence that made up for his obvious lack of wilderness experience. Bucky had faith that he could figure out that Sam wasn’t trying to kill him but that probably didn’t even cross his mind.

“Fine. But what was with that injured animal thing? And which one of you was that?” Tony asks.

Bucky laughs, “humans, for your faults, do love your animals. One good thing about your species is that you usually don’t like causing direct harm to animals yourselves and even your hunters tend to take care to kill their game quick unless they’re demented. So if you’re lucky you can play the part of a wounded animal and humans will take pity on you and leave you alone. And it was me. Congratulations, I didn’t even have to whimper to get you to back off.” Most humans needed the extra push but Tony hadn’t. Bucky might have let him go too if not for the massive posse that followed him into the woods. He needed to know they weren’t coming back.

“Don’t kid yourself, humans are pretty nasty to animals, we just don’t like to admit it. I’m not giving up my chicken nuggets though,” Tony says and Bucky shakes his head.

*

Tony only had oh, a million and one questions about werewolves now that he’s classed them as mostly not dangerous. To be fair he’d kill a bunch of dudes that just about killed his friend and were clearly intent on killing someone else too, plus he felt no empathy for Obadiah walking into a werewolf trap almost on purpose. “Why live in the forest though?” Tony asks and Bucky laughs.

“Humans don’t tend to care for wilderness unless they’re on vacation. And I mean _wilderness_ , not rural areas. Not that wolves don’t have houses and electricity and whatever, but we tend to be pretty far off the hiking trail,” Bucky tells him as he pulls up to Tony’s house. He gives Tony an immediate look of distain Tony now knows is due to his obvious wealth. In Bucky’s terms he was a shit person and Tony was inclined to agree. “How many people did you have to fuck over to get _that_?” he asks, nodding to Tony’s large house. It wasn’t a mansion but he had those too so he couldn’t really defend himself.

“If I wanted to delude myself none but if I’m honest hundreds of thousands,” he says.

Bucky seems surprised by this answer, “so you know you’re greedy then,” he says and Tony nods.

“I try not to be now but in my youth…” he shakes his head. “I was raised to think a certain way and it messed me up for a long time. I turned into someone I hated and one day I woke up and I was just… done. I wanted no part of it so I changed everything around or so I thought. Turns out Obadiah has been doing a lot of shit I didn’t know about so I’ve got my work cut out for me but thank to you and your pack I’m not dead so thanks. I didn’t have a will.” He’d hate to see how people fought over his company though he’d hope that Pepper would be smart enough and resourceful enough to snatch it for herself. She’d be a fantastic CEO.

“What do you mean ‘try’, clearly you have more than any one human could ever need in that house alone. Humans with that wealth have more where this comes from,” Bucky says, giving Tony’s house a suspicious look.

Tony doesn’t blame him for it; he’s earned the suspicion from Bucky in particular and in general. “I mean I try to spread the wealth now. I obviously have way more than I need but I also have a job that’s extremely economically profitable so thanks to the arbitrary value my technology has I get a huge wage. That said I pay my workers well above minimum, even in other countries, they have health insurance, there’s no tolerance for any kind of discrimination, that kind of thing. Recently I added pet insurance as a thing and surprisingly that made the workers happy enough that my sales boosted again.” People thought he gave too much away but if his new business practices have taught him anything it’s that happy workers were profitable. If the workers were happy to be there the interactions with the customers were much better and therefore people bought more. Lucky him because lots of people had pets with problems and that had cost him when he put that through. He got it all back pretty fast though.

“So you run some kind of company, then?” Bucky asks.

He can’t help but laugh, “I think this is the first time I’ve run into someone who hasn’t immediately recognized me since I was like six. Yeah, I run the largest and most profitable tech company in the world and I’m also pretty famous elsewhere.” This was a treat, really. He never ran into people that didn’t already know who he was.

“Never heard of you,” Bucky mumbles.

“Clearly. I have a million more questions so if you could be so kind to put up with me for some more time that’d be nice. I have coffee,” Tony says as an attempt to bribe the man. Lucky for him Bucky agrees.

*

Bucky didn’t expect to like Tony given how they met but after a few hours with hum he had relaxed. Tony, like most members of his species, was a curious bastard but unlike most of his species he asked questions to learn, not confirm what he already thought he knew. Bucky explained a lot to him that night, things like the nuances of werewolf culture, where he thought it went right and where he thought it went wrong. He even ended up explaining how werewolves ended up being a thing when Tony asked why Sam hadn’t just shifted into a wolf to play wounded puppy.

Werewolves were initially created by a curse witches put on a bunch of men acting like jackasses. They were acting like animals, the witches said, so they were sentenced to _be_ animals too. Granted that spell has been used on every gender since then, but that was the origin story for the species as a whole. Not a great starts, but they did eventually figure themselves out. One of those things that were figured out was reproduction. Since the initial curse was on all men they discovered reproduction with humans was possible but the curse was passed down, sex of the baby be damned. They also figured out that over time the werewolf genes seemed to dwindle somewhat and the affects of the curse were lessened. Those werewolves didn’t have the ability to change form though they still had a boosted immune system, better eyesight, supernatural healing, and various other werewolf benefits.

Wolves that had children with other werewolves retained the ability to transform. With the ability to transform they also learned that their bites would transmit the curse in a manner of speaking. Those with no wolf form couldn’t turn people. Omegas could turn people regardless of whether or not they could turn into an actual wolf because they were unique. No one knew why scientifically. Tony thought that in particular was fascinating and asked about a million questions about it but Bucky had no answers there so he had asked more about the curse used to create werewolves. He had no idea about that either and neither did modern witches, but before the curse was lost they were rather fond of it and used it on just about everyone that irked them. Men might have been the initial target but Elizabethan women were the next target. Witches didn’t like the fashion trends or so the stories went. Beyond that the curse took a few trips around the world and boom, there were a crap ton of werewolves thanks to come annoyed witches cursing people.

Tony found the witches delightfully petty and asked about them but Bucky only had so much knowledge there. Tony had also been enthused to learn that humans made the term ‘warlock’ up and witches made no distinction between genders in reference to their species. He lamented about Harry Potter lying to him but Bucky was unsurprised, the series was written by a human. No self-respecting witch would write something so inaccurate. By time he leaves Tony’s he’s much more relaxed than when he first met the guy. He still maintained that humans were horrible though.

*

Given that Bucky’s wolf-y culture was big on thank you mementos Tony figured he’d give Bucky’s pack something for saving his life. He had mentioned a few things about his pack’s conditions, nothing particularly telling really, but he had gathered enough to know that food was sometimes hard to find and energy was a precious commodity. So when Tony makes his way back through the forest, remembering the road he travelled out on, he brings food and solar panels.

The look on Bucky’s face was almost hilarious given his look of shock and anger. “How did you find us again?” he snaps.

Tony grins, “eidetic memory. If I see it once I don’t forget it. I come bearing gifts though,” Tony says, gesturing to the trailer attacked to his truck. He hated trucks, he had a preference for fast cars, but sometimes he needed one to get supplies for the lab and it was useful now. He had brought a huge amount of food, remembering Bucky telling him about wolves having a high metabolism and a huge appetite.

“Those cookies are mine I will fight anyone to tries to steal them!” Sam yells, snatching some cookies out of the back. Tony couldn’t believe he managed to smell them through the plastic.

“Oh, what are those? Can I have one?” Steve asks, leaning over to look at Sam’s cookies. Everyone seems to freeze for a moment, looking at Sam to see his reaction. Tony sensed something important was happening but he had no idea what and Sam looked oblivious.

“Fine, but only because I like you,” he tells Steve and everyone relaxes a little. Clearly Sam did something right but Tony didn’t know what.

“There’s plenty of stuff back there but there are solar panels underneath so be careful not to damage them,” Tony tells the wolves. They all look at Bucky, Sam included even though he’s laid claim to all the cookies but the one he’s agreed to give to Steve. Bucky gestures at them to go ahead and they all swarm the truck minus Bucky, who approaches the passenger side window.

“What is this?” he asks, giving Tony a suspicious look. He thought they were past that but apparently not.

“This is a thanks for saving my ass and not eating me even though you probably should have. I remembered you saying you guys sometimes have food problems and that your generator sucked. The sun never runs out so I thought solar power would be useful to you guys. The uh… well the problem is that I’ll have to spend some time here making sure they work and it’s going to involve being in your space a lot,” he says to give Bucky a fair warning.

“Can’t you teach us to do it?” Bucky asks, looking pained.

“Sure I could, but that’d take longer than doing it myself. I figured I’d teach as I installed since you guys need to know how to do maintenance anyways,” he says.

This seems to both surprise and appease Bucky. “Well then, come in. We might as well cook you something for helping us out,” he says. Tony frowns, baffled that Bucky felt the need to repay him with the repayment Tony just gave him.

*

Sam grins and sits beside one confused looking Tony. “You don’t understand what’s going on, do you?” he asks and Tony shakes his head.

“I didn’t really expect to be fed,” he says.

Of course he didn’t, humans didn’t work like wolves did. Sam would know, he used to be one. “When wolves get gifts we share them pretty much always if the gift allows it. It’s a way to keep us all humble- we share out gift so we don’t get singled out and let it go to our heads.”

Something seems to go off in Tony’s head then and then he nods, “and the gift giver also doesn’t get singled out because they get a piece too. They can’t hold it over you later,” he says and Sam nods.

“See, there you go, you’re getting it. We didn’t expect repayment though,” he says.

“I know. But I did almost bash your head in and you guys _did_ save my ass so I thought I’d say thanks. And sorry. I shouldn’t have hit you,” Tony says. Sam waits for the ‘but’ statement, the one that would make an excuse for what he because humans had a nasty habit of making their apologies about themselves but it doesn’t come.

Sam shrugs, “I get it. I used to be human once too so I know you were probably pretty afraid.”

Tony looks surprised at this, “I thought only wolves that could turn into wolves could transmit the curse and I thought bitten wolves could always turn into wolves also,” he says.

He laughs, shaking his head at Tony’s confusion. “Usually that’s the case but I was something of an exception. The wolf that bit me could turn into a wolf but they were barely able to do that, too much human DNA was mixed with wolf DNA. So instead of transferring _all_ werewolf abilities I only got most of them. Boy was that a relief at first, not I’m kind of mad that I can’t turn into a wolf.” Sometimes they all brushed Bucky or Clint and he was jealous, it looked relaxing to have your whole body brushed. As it was he liked to maintain a mostly bald head so there wasn’t even hair there to brush.

“Why would you be mad about that? Werewolves have some pretty impressive abilities,” Tony says.

He nods in agreement, “they do. But I started out human and all I knew were human expectations and rules. I don’t know how much you know about stereotypes about black men but there are some assumptions about us being more animalistic than other races. I worked my whole life to make sure no one could ever think that about me only to have some jackass bite me and turn me into an animal anyways. It took a long time to unlearn my prejudice towards werewolves and to stop thinking of myself in terms of racist stereotypes. But finding out I actually can’t turn into a literal animal helped.”

Tony winces, “that’s awful actually. My best friend Rhodey, he’s dealt with some of that too and it never stops pissing me off when I see it happen to him. I’m pretty sure he’d think being able to turn into a wolf would be pretty awesome though, he’d probably prance around all proud of his fur or something,” he says, laughing.

“I would too if I had any but sadly I’m just me. The night vision is pretty cool though, no more stubbing my toes when I need to pee during the night _and_ demons can’t sneak up on me,” he says and Tony snorts and starts laughing again.

*

Bucky has decided he may like Tony but he hated climbing trees to he made Natasha do it. She could teach Clint and they could learn ho to do maintenance on the stupid solar panels. “They aren’t even that high up,” Tony teases him. He wasn’t wrong; they were placed on the trees that got the most sun in their clearing.

“I don’t like heights,” he says in his own defense.

“So I’ve gathered,” Tony says back and they fall into silence for a long few minutes. It’s not uncomfortable but he can smell that Tony wants to ask him something and it’s distracting. Finally Tony asks though. “I don’t know what happened and I probably don’t want to but your arm, does it need any kind of maintenance?” he asks.

Bucky looks down at his arm and frowns. “Probably but I’ve never let anyone look at it,” he admits.

Tony looks at the metal arm for a long enough time that Bucky shifts in discomfort. He hadn’t meant to let Tony know he had it but he was comfortable in his home and he wasn’t used to outsider humans lingering in the trees out back so he had gone out without it covered by accident earlier in the week. He saw the exact moment when Tony noticed but he didn’t say anything thankfully.

“You probably should. Machines get old, they need to be taken care of and if you aren’t doing it you could get hurt,” he says softly. He cared, Bucky could hear that he cared and that was probably the only reason he let Tony anywhere near his arm. And the condition was that Natasha and Steve also had to be there.

*  
Bucky’s arm was a thing of beauty but given how uncomfortable he was with it Tony didn’t really want to know how he got it. He’s hinted at a past no one would want and Tony didn’t feel keen on gathering the details from him. He is, however, happy that he managed to talk Bucky into looking at the arm because there were several problems with it that would have been giving Bucky problems if he didn’t have a boosted immune system. He even found some crossed wired that should have been causing Bucky an immense amount of pain given how the limb connected to his body but he hadn’t even noticed until the pain was gone. Tony found that horrifying at best but he said nothing about it.

By the time he’s finishes fixing everything that was wrong with Bucky’s arm and half building a better model in his head most of his pack had showed up to watch what was going on anxiously. They all had something to say but none of them seemed willing to say it. Finally they all looked over at Steve, whom Tony knew by now was the easiest way to get Bucky to do anything he didn’t want to. If Steve wanted him to do it he would. Usually, he had learned, omegas and alphas were mated pairs in packs but Steve and Bucky were friends only though their platonic connection was stronger than any average platonic relationship. It reminded Tony of his relationship with Rhodey. He was more of a brother really, one that Tony had always wanted and kind of needed.

“Bucky,” Steve says softly, “you need to have that looked at regularly.”

Bucky already looks betrayed and Tony almost laughs but he keeps it to himself. Bucky’s facial expressions might be amusing but how he got to looking outraged at the suggestion that he should take care of a prosthetic Tony doubted he wanted was not. “This was good enough. I’ll be fine,” he says.

Steve looks at Tony, “you’re the tech expert, what do you think? Is this good enough?”

Shit. Tony hadn’t wanted to be dragged into this but he had no choice now. He sighs, “no, it isn’t. Technology is like anything else; it needs constant maintenance to run its best. You’ll be fine for a few months but it’ll need to be looked at regularly to function right. And some of those parts are old and should be replaced. Had I known that I would have brought the replacements but I didn’t know what I was walking into so I couldn’t,” he says honestly.

“See, you need someone to look after that,” Steve says.

“No,” Bucky snaps, “this was more than enough!”

“Bucky,” Steve presses but Tony shakes his head.

“No, don’t push it. You can’t force him to put up with people poking around in his limb. It’s his limb, he has to live with it, and if he doesn’t want someone looking after it than that’s his choice,” Tony says. There’s no malice in it, it’s just a fact. It would be like forcing someone to go to the doctor for a procedure they didn’t want; it was highly unethical to force someone into that. Tony got the idea that Bucky has been forced into enough.

Of all the pack members Bucky looks the most surprised. “Really?” he asks, shocked.

“Yeah really, why would you think I’d say anything different?” he asks.

Bucky sits back in his chair, “because we all saw the look on your face when you were working on my arm. You looked… happy. And not that pretend happy that you put on all the time, I mean really happy. Blissful even. This brought you genuine joy, I thought you’d press your point to feel that again,” he says.

Tony shakes his head, “I love engineering but this particular piece of tech, as beautiful as it is, is also someone’s body part. I don’t care how much I liked working on it; I can’t force someone into what is essentially surgery on their body just because _I_ like it. That’s awful.”

Tony can feel the whole room shift and he knows something is happening but he has no idea what. A brief glance around doesn’t tell him much either, just that something was happening between him and Bucky and he didn’t know what it was. “You’d give that up because you want me to feel comfortable?” Bucky asks.

“Is that even a real question? Obviously I would, what kind of savage _wouldn’t_?” he asks, genuinely perplexed.

“Lots of people, Tony. Lots of people,” Bucky says in a soft, haunted tone.

“Well I’m not them. I have basic morals and ethics I guess,” he says in an irritated tone. He sort of wanted to find whoever made Bucky think this _wasn’t_ normal treatment and punch them in the face for treating him so badly. No one should look in the face of an obvious ethical decision and question it like Bucky was doing now.

Bucky gently places his hand over Tony’s, “thank you,” he says in a quiet voice. He looks pale and shaken and Tony doesn’t know why but he doesn’t want to know either.

*

Steve knew before anyone in part because he knew Bucky well but also because he had the best nose out of all of them. He could smell the way Bucky’s affection towards Tony was growing almost from the moment they met. First there was the grudging respect he had for someone so willing to talk back to someone that, in Tony’s eyes, was prepared to kill him at any moment. Then there was his generally being impressed that Tony wanted to learn for the sake of learning, and he liked listening to Bucky talk too. Even though he insulted humans every other sentence.

And then Tony had shown up out of the blue with a bunch of food and solar panels he didn’t need to bring. Bucky hadn’t expected him to pass that test of his, the one when he asked if Tony could just teach them to put the panels up. Steve had been skeptical given how small they were but they took in more energy than they needed. Still, Tony passed the test and then some by saying that putting the panels up himself would be faster, therefore he’d be out of their space faster given that he knew they didn’t want him in it. He had also warned Bucky about the time frame that it would take, which doubled as him asking permission, and followed it up by telling him he had planned on teaching them to maintain the panels. The implication was that he’d only be there to make sure they went up right and worked, not that he was there to give them something they would need him around to deal with.

He wasn’t trying to force himself into their lives, basically. And then there was the arm thing the first time, when they all already knew how much Tony loved his technology but he said nothing about Bucky’s arm even if he wanted to. And when he did say something he made sure Bucky was comfortable when he did it. Lastly though he had listened to Bucky when he said no. No one else had and they all had his best interest in mind but none of them really knew anything about Bucky’s past. Just that it involved humans and they must have been some cruel given how much he hated them now. But Tony backed right off right away even though he obviously would have loved to work on it more. Bucky expected him to be selfish, to press his point like the rest of the pack was but he didn’t. In that moment he had done better than the rest of the pack even though they all wanted what was best for Bucky.

So when Bucky starts looking at Tony mostly in confusion Steve knows what’s going on first. It was amusing to watch, Bucky trying to sort his feelings for Tony while getting irrationally jealous of Sam, who Tony spent the most time with. Sam picked up on Tony’s technology the fastest, followed by Natasha, so he spent time going over how to care for the solar panels with them. He also spent time with Sam just because they got along, which shouldn’t surprise Bucky because Sam got along with everyone.

“Stop looking at him like that,” Steve finally tells after Tony manages to hook up the last of the wiring in the house for the solar panels.

“Huh?” Bucky asks, playing dumb he guessed.

“Sam. Stop glaring at him like he’s stealing your mate. He isn’t,” he says.

“You don’t know that,” Bucky mumbles darkly.

“I sure hope I would considering I’m dating the guy,” he says and he walks away as Bucky sputter behind him, obviously surprised. Of course he was, he was too wrapped up in his own woes to pay attention to the change in Sam and Steve’s scents. Served him right for not pulling his head out of his ass all because Tony was a human and Bucky didn’t really like those. Maybe he should learn that on an individual level humans weren’t so bad, even if they still sucked when gathered in groups.

*

“Hey,” Bucky calls after Tony as he leaves the house. Tony turns around in surprise because Bucky should be glad he was out of his hair. “I um… you… I…”

Steve sticks his head out the door under Bucky’s arm, “you want to go on a date with him?” he asks and he can hear everyone start howling inside, no pun intended.

“Are you seriously hitting on Tony for me?” Bucky asks Steve.

He shrugs, “well if you weren’t going to do it someone had to,” he says and Tony starts laughing.

“Yeah, sure,” he says because he’d grown fond of Bucky. Most people hated when he asked questions but Bucky seemed to thrive off of it. And Tony always had questions that needed answers.

“Excellent,” Steve says, grinning as he pulled himself back into the house.

“Um… maybe you could fix my arm. I think something’s gone screwy again, I can feel it being weird,” Bucky says somewhat tentatively.

Tony smiles, “so long as you’re okay with that sure. I can show you my lab,” he says. Bucky has let him into all kinds of intimate places of his; the least he could do was return the favor.

Bucky smiles, “sure, I’d like that.”

**Author's Note:**

> [My writing Tumblr](https://tenspencerriedplease.tumblr.com/)


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